1 What is Left? / 2 Resentment in Britain: Hobsbawm and Thompson / 3 Disdain in America: Galbraith and Dworkin / 4 Liberation in France: Sartre and Foucault / 5 Tedium in Germany: Downhill to Habermas /6 Nonsense in Paris: Althusser, Lacan and Deleuze / 7 Culture Wars Worldwide: The New Left from Gramsci to Said / 8 The Kraken Wakes: Badiou and Žižek /9 What is Right?
What does the Left look like today and how has it evolved? Is there any foundation for resistance to its agenda without religious faith?
Professor Roger Scruton is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge. He has been Professor of Aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London, and University Professor at Boston University. He is currently visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford and Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington DC. He has published a large number of books, including some works of fiction, and has written and composed two operas. He writes regularly for the Times, the Telegraph, the Spectator and was for many years wine critic of the New Statesman.
Eminent British philosopher and polymath Scruton gives a
sharp-edged, provocative critique of leading leftist thinkers since
the mid-twentieth century ... complex and erudite
*Publisher's Weekly US*
Caustic, highly recherché, and simply great fun to read for the
questing intellectual soul.
*Kirkus Reviews*
From the standpoint of a serious conservatism, it honestly assesses
the political and philosophical contributions of the Left. The book
also addresses what is likely our most pressing question: ‘Can
there be any foundation for resistance to the leftist agenda
without religious faith?'
*Catholic World Report*
Since he no longer has a university career to protect, Scruton can
now tweak the nose of academic leftism to his heart’s content…
Scruton is at his best, (and funniest) when trying to make sense of
[Alain] Badiou’s weird confection historical materialism and
Platonic mathematical theory
*Prospect*
The book is a masterpiece ... In crisp, sometimes brilliant prose,
Mr. Scruton considers scores of works in three languages, giving
the reader an understanding of each thinker’s overarching aim and
his place within the multifaceted movement known as the New Left.
He neither ridicules nor abuses the writers he considers; he
patiently deconstructs them, first explaining their work in terms
they themselves would recognize and then laying bare their warped
assumptions and empty pretensions.
*Wall Street Journal*
I enjoyed this immensely, both for Scruton's dry, British wit as
well as for the sheer breadth of intellectuals covered in his
survey
*Against the Grain Blog*
Highly recommended
*Powerline US Blog*
Here Scruton thoroughly and fairly debunks the ostentation,
obfuscation, and terrible writing and downright deceitfulness of
much of postwar Marxist-inspired philosophy. For Scruton the
culprits are mainly from France and Germany—beginning with Sartre
and carrying through to Foucault, Habermas, Althusser, Lacan,
Deleuze, Gramsci, and Said—and he carries the attack forward to
Badiou and Žižek. Even Galbraith and Dworkin take a few hits.
Scruton writes from the perspective of an old-school conservative.
His sympathies are with the virtues of the countryside and
historically rooted associations of every sort, from churches and
the US Constitution to volunteer fire departments, brass bands, and
the local Grange. His personal point of view could be called
sentimental … but his arguments against his foes are substantial
and deep. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates
through faculty.
*CHOICE*
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